“Why computers” (at all) is something I’m currently struggling with a lot at the moment. Or, what is a computer, is there something on the boundary of computer/not computer.
More interesting/productive has been the process of interfacing with low-level “analog” logic elements, and embracing their analogness, metastabilities, hysteresis effects and so on. the fine line between determinacy/indeterminacy.
Logic+ analog feedback, the first memory elements (RS latches, flip flops) were discovered in just this way. Which is of course “illogic”, since the relationships this feedback expresses are by definition, nonsensical… X = not(X) and so on.
(But for me still a long way to go here…)
anyway – not worrying about [Turing] “completeness”. re-emphasizing synthetic modes (of assemblage, of “Cybernetic Serendipity”) rather than analytic (e.g. modern industrial coding practices, which I’m immersed in most of the time for work).
Anti-Turing, anti-Helmholtz. But “anti” in the sense of turning things around. There’s a sense where “anti” indicates a huge debt. It’s just subverting the entire structure from within. Synthetic rather than analytic; immanent rather than transcendent.
The point where it’s no longer a computer, is where it becomes most interesting for me. But then too, it has to be almost a computer. Almost/no longer. This point of indistinction (which is always provisional) is the aim.
Live coding aims in a similar direction, certainly I’m inspired by recent developments (Orca etc.) and consider my interests to be along similar lines.
Also – rediscovering or at least reading about early work of Erkki Kurenniemi (DIMI experiments), Michel Waisvisz (Crackle, early circuit bending) David Rosenboom (biofeedback). I’m not directly pursuing any of these things; like live coding it’s just more inspiring than anything…
Anyway – besides being of questionable relevance, my laptop is just a horrible interface with latency (keys/touchpad), apps (Logic) frequently running out of memory, audio drivers not always showing up, perpetual notifications, having to be online to deal with software licenses, etc. I think others have covered these points.
Plus the laptop is so small. The phone – even worse, it encourages us to shut out the rest of the world and become locked in the platform. But the laptop is not better in any essential sense… And they’re already on the way to convergence. Still – I’m writing this on a laptop. We find ways to subvert the structure, I guess… But on the question of size – the “instruments” I like to work with are body-sized. It should be impossible to keep the whole “instrument” in view. So you have to move around, you have to have some awareness of your physical surroundings. The original arp 2600 got this exactly right.
Now – a lot of studios have desktops and huge screens… I can see the benefit of this but have not gone there myself.
And of course one could compose an instrument out of 5-6 small “boxes” or “movable parts” (the latter a concept from Robert Hood).
So I have basically 100% negative associations with the laptop and the less I rely on it, the more creative possibilities are opening up for me. But I have to rely on it still for many things (recording, mixing, …)
However, I’m still not that interested in the “single purpose computer” because (aside from also being very small) the elements it yields (I fear, I don’t know…) are still not enough low-level, not enough unstable, or “open” (to analog effects) to cross the threshold of interestingness right now.
So – is the “single-purpose” computer really single-purpose enough? Perhaps the concept could be pushed even further? And in pushing it further, at what point do the presuppositions of modern industrial coding practices (reusability, maintainability, infinite version control, etc.) become obstacles?
